Read a full match report of the international friendly between Scotland and
Estonia at Pittodrie, Aberdeen, on Wednesday Feb 6, 2013.

Gordon Strachan inaugurated his career as an international manager with a welcome victory, albeit in a friendly and against an Estonian team rated 83rd in the Fifa rankings, and he will take that as a positive. He also gave the Tartan Army the sort of selection they crave, so that by the end of the evening they had seen no fewer than eight attacking players in dark blue jerseys.

Yet the only goal of the game was scored by a defender – Charlie Mulgrew – and as is so often the case with Scotland, the closing stage of a contest was attended by anxiety.

The first half yielded encouragement in decent measure as Scotland pressed, as the manager had instructed, using the width provided by the former Rangers pair of Steven Naismith and Chris Burke, allied to the trickery of Shaun Maloney, who had been assigned to play off and around Steven Fletcher in attack.

There were, however, also warnings that an energetically expansive style has to be underpinned by vigilance deep in midfield against teams adept at counter attack.

On the credit side, Scotland emerged from the blocks in exactly the fashion required to give themselves momentum and warm the spirits of the fans who had turned out on a cold and windy night, raw even by the standards of the Granite City. Within two minutes the Scots had forced successive corners, the first of which saw Maloney hit a netbound effort that was turned aside by Sergei Pareiko, before the second came to nothing.

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The bright untroubled opening passage came to an end when Charlie Adam struck over the top from a free- kick on the edge of the box that should have carried more menace. One intriguing individual contest which developed over the half was that between Burke – winning his first cap since 2006 – and the Estonian left-back, Taijo Teniste.

Although Teniste had his hands full attempting to cope with Burke’s close control the defender showed his own aggressive mettle when he uncorked a stinging drive from distance that had to be tipped over the top by Allan McGregor.

Teniste was able to crack another over the top from a similar distance as the crowd held their breath and began to wonder if a familiar pattern – of good Scottish possession but a paucity of penetration – was reasserting itself. Estonia came even closer when Tamo Kink was played in by a delightful chip from Konstantin Vassiljev to go one on one with McGregor, who made himself big and kept Scotland level with a vital block.

By this stage a goal was needed urgently. To general relief it arrived with a set-piece straight from the training ground. Igor Morozov – who was eventually cautioned for his over physical interventions – toppled Maloney on the left of the Estonian box, six yards from the dead ball line. Adam took his time over the free-kick and, with the Estonians clearly anticipating a driven delivery, cutely cut back into available space for Mulgrew to trim a low shot between Pareiko and the far post.

At half-time Oper departed, having been unable to add to his record of 38 goals for Estonia, while Burke and Maloney made way for Robert Snodgrass and Jordan Rhodes.

Rhodes, the darling of the fans, was greeted with acclaim and he was his usual busy self, as was Snodgrass and, when they eventually arrived, Kenny Miller and Kris Commons. But, to emphasise the lack of a cutting edge, the best chance of the second half again came from Mulgrew, with a rising drive that was touched narrowly over by Pareiko.